...tue ethics is a broad term for theories that emphasize the role of character and virtue in moral philosophy rather than either doing one’s duty or acting in order to bring about good consequences. A virtue ethicist is likely to give you this kind of moral advice: “Act as a virtuous person would act in your situation.” Most virtue ethics theories take their inspiration from Aristotle who declared that a virtuous person is someone who has ideal character traits. These traits derive from natural internal tendencies, but need to be nurtured; however, once established, they will become stable. For example, a virtuous person is someone who is kind across many situations over a lifetime because that is her character and not because she wants to maximize utility or gain favors or simply do her duty. Unlike deontological and consequentialist theories, theories of virtue ethics do not aim primarily to identify universal principles that can be applied in any moral situation. And virtue ethics theories deal with wider questions—“How should I live?” and “What is the good life?” and “What are proper family and social values?” Since its revival in the twentieth century, virtue ethics has been developed in three main directions: Eudaimonism, agent-based theories, and the ethics of care. Eudaimonism bases virtues in human flourishing, where flourishing is equated with performing one’s distinctive function well. In the case of humans, Aristotle argued that our distinctive function is reasoning...
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...Virtue ethics Virtue ethics put emphasis on the role of one's character and the virtues that one's character represents for defining ones ethical behavior. Virtue ethics is one of the three main approaches to normative ethics, often compared to deontology which put emphasis on duty to rules and consequentialism which derives right or wrong from the consequence of ones acts (Wikipedia, 2012). Therefore, virtue theory put emphasis on character, rather than rules or consequences, as the main part of ethical thinking. The difference between these three approaches to normative ethics has a tendency to rely more how moral dilemmas are approached than in how the moral decision is reached. For example, a consequentialist could argue that telling a lie is immoral because of the bad consequences it may produce; yet on the other hand may tolerate a lie if good consequences occur because of the lie, then it is okay. A deontologist on the other hand will argue that a lie is a lie, regardless of any would-be good that might come from the lie. A virtue ethicist, however, main emphasis would be less on the lying; but focusing more on the decision to tell the lie or not tell a lie. A virtue ethicist would say that says a lot about a person’s character and moral behavior (Wikipedia, 2012). Therefore, virtue ethics is about being rather than doing. With virtue ethics, ethics springs from the uniqueness and/or the character of an individual, rather than being a reflection of the actions...
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...The virtue ethics theory is presently one of three most well known points of views in normative ethics. Virtue in itself is moral excellence and righteousness and goodness. It can simply be defined as the theory that establishes the virtues, or moral character. Deontology in contrast to the virtue theory is a theory that governs duties and rules and emphasizes that for every action there is a consequence. Deontological ethics is in staying with Scripture, natural moral law, and intuitions from common sense.In the same sense, the utilitarian theory also focuses on consequences, but in a different light. The utilitarian theory states that people should try to maximize overall well-being. There are many different utilitarian theories, but they all have one thing in common. Each theory basically says that no moral rule or act is intrinsically right it wrong. Morality is a matter of the non-moral good produced that results from moral actions and rules, and moral duty is instrumental, not intrinsic. (Moreland J.P. 2009) Values are the regard that something is held to deserve or the importance or preciousness of something. Values, virtue and morality all go together. People have different beliefs, morals, and values because different people have different perspective on what are right and wrong. One theory I think can relate to a lot of things that have happened in my life is the utilitarian theory. I think I always try to maximize the most good that I possibly can. The world will...
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...Aristotle and David Hume developed accounts of ethics that remained true to their own empirical philosophies that are different from more traditional accounts with the overall theme of how a virtuous person would live their life. In contrast, David Hume developed his own account of sentimentalist virtue ethics that challenges, or pushes back on, the virtue ethics Aristotle. According to Aristotle, we should be virtuous people – and as virtuous people do virtuous things. Instead of talking about particular actions and the rules according to which they are undertaken, then, Aristotle requires us to look at virtues, or qualities of character. Within Aristotle, the emphasis is more on character traits than on rules or obligations. Moral agency is not merely a matter of which rules to follow, but a whole way of life, which requires a unity of thought and feeling, which is characteristic of what Aristotle called ‘virtue’. What is a virtue, and what is the virtuous life? Aristotle’s definition is cited by Boetzkes and Waluchow: virtue is “a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by rational principle, that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.” Virtue is a kind of disposition, but that’s not all – for virtue is a disposition to choose well. For Aristotle, virtuous action is action that emerges from one’s disposition to choose the middle point (or golden mean) between two vicious extremes;...
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...The definition of flourishing and happiness can mean many different things for other people. To me flourishing means that someone can be satisfied with their surroundings and have many things going right so they can advance and grow in whatever they are working on or learning. So in turn, flourishing is growing and learning new things successfully. Happiness is being joyful and blissful with what is going on in the current situation and life. Bing happy is being satisfied and knowing joy in your life. I am a happy person in general, and with my current situation in life I am also flourishing. A person who is just flourishing and not happy is a person with a goal in mind and not so worried about happiness on the way. The best example of someone flourishing and not happy is going to be my very handsome cousin Derry. He is driven and flourishing in a large way, running two businesses. But not really worried about being happy over being successful. There is another example of someone who is happy but not flourishing. My ex-husband seems to be happy, but is not going anywhere in life, no drive, no way to move forward unless he tries. To everyone else he seems to be happy with where he is in life. No need to move forward, just satisfied with the situation at hand. I think the best example of someone who is both happy and flourishing is a child that is growing in a happy healthy environment with a loving family and the encouragement to grow in whatever way they need to. ...
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...Virtue ethics is individual-based rather than action based. It can be defined as theories that highlight the functions of character and virtue in moral philosophy rather than performing a duty or an action in order to yield good consequences. In other words, it observes the virtue or moral characteristics of a person performing an action, rather than the ethical rules or consequences or ramification of such actions. In that way, virtue ethics examines the entirety of a person's life, rather than particular actions or episodes. It recommends that one of the best ways to build a good society is to assist its members to be good people, instead of using laws and retributive justice to prevent or discourage bad actions. It is an advantageous theory since human beings are sometimes more interested in evaluating the character of another person than they are in evaluating the’ goodness or badness’ of a particular action; thereby focusing on how to adopt certain...
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...In this paper I want to focus on Virtue ethics and why I believe virtue ethics is the way to go when it comes down to personal and professional development in life and business. In personal/life development, virtue ethics transforms the paradigm of doing “what is right and wrong?” to a freedom of thinking in “what kind of person you are and does this action fit into what you are?”. Virtue ethics in personal development allows a dynamic way of thinking that allows a person to grow and learn that everything isn’t black and white as Kantian ethics suggest neither is it as dutiful as Utilitarian ethics. Virtue ethics in professional and business development allows for definition or a guiding light in a sense, in terms of question if your business is performing for your patients best interests if you’re in medicine or are you looking to provide a real solution for your prospects financial trouble and not stealing homes, if you’re in the buying real estate business. To explain and understand virtue ethics, you would first need to know Aristotle and understand his philosophies on virtuous society and what he considers virtuous behavior. Aristotle was an intelligent man being a student of Plato and teaching Alexander the Great. Aristotle’s written and spoken works were very serious and influential in subjects from logic to biology, meta physics to ethics and poetry that he was literally known to his colleagues as “The Philosopher”. With...
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...Joseph Krois Philosophy paper 1 PHIL 1110 Ethics Instructor Bearden A case for Virtue Ethics In this paper I will write about virtue ethics, a normative moral theory that emphasizes moral virtues, or character in contrast to following rules or duties (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialiasm). Plato, and perhaps more famously, Aristotle laid out the teachings and characteristics of virtue ethics which was the preeminent school of thought in western philosophy until the enlightenment. After a brief period of relative obscurity virtue ethics reemerged in the late 1950's as the dominant form of moral philosophy in Anglo-American culture. The defining characteristics of virtue ethics over other normative theories is the concepts of practical wisdom, virtuous character traits, and eudamonia which roughly translates to 'flourishing' or 'well being'(Vaughn pg 134). In essence virtue ethics asks the question, 'who should I be?' rather than 'what should I do?'. Because our actions cannot be determined by one set of overarching rules, nor can the outcome of action and therefore its goodness truly be predicted prior to the commitance of the action, it is my belief that virtue ethics is the most practical, and therefore useful theory of moral philosophy. How virtue ethics help us determine right and wrong action is through the development of good character traits, such as honesty, empathy, kindess etc...
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...Threats on Virtue Ethics Situationist theories is now known to pose a threat on to virtue ethics like Aristotle’s. Aristotle’s theory is very simple and straight forward, once people have the ‘right’ or ‘proper’ virtues, with practice it will never change. In this paper I am going to argue against Aristotelian ethics because people do not always keep their virtues in certain situations. Aristotle claims that once a virtue is learned, ‘come to light’, practice and lived by, the person practicing it will never change it. Aristotelian ethics is the practice of virtues, a median between the two vices that is “right”, also known as virtue ethics. Once someone finds the correct balance or the golden median between the extremes, vices, it becomes a virtue once practiced. This is something someone can practice and it becomes habit. Once done enough, it becomes who you are, the very thing you stand for and “will never change”. An Aristotelian argument would go something like this: (P1) A golden mean is practiced. (P2) Golden mean becomes a virtue. (P3) Virtue is something that is never broken. (C1)Virtue is practiced and never broken no matter the situation. This is where I do not agree, “Will never change”. I will provide an example of what I perceive as virtue ethics. This can be related to boot camp. Kids go to boot camp because they are misbehaving, or not acting the way their parents think they should. They don’t value the right things, they have no virtues. Once at boot...
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...Chapter 9 – Virtue theory o Virtues – trained behavioral dispositions that result in habitual acts of moral goodness. o Vice – The opposite of virtue, trained behavioral dispositions that result in habitual acts of moral wrongness. o Virtue theory: based on the central theme of which is that morality involves producing excellent persons, who act well out of spontaneous goodness and serve as examples o inspire others. o Virtue-based concept of theology – focuses on the goal of life: living well and achieving excellence. - Main virtues: wisdom, temperance, courage and justice → cardinal virtues. - Another one is: faith, hope, and charity → theological virtues The nature of virtue ethics - It is not only important to do the right thing, but also to have the proper dispositions, motivations, and emotions in being good and doing right. - Not only about actions, but also about emotions, character and moral habit. It calls us to aspire to be an ideal person. Two types: o Moral virtues: honesty, benevolence, no malevolence, fairness, kindness, conscientiousness, and gratitude. o Nonmoral virtues: courage, optimism, rationality, self-control, patience, endurance, industry, music talent, and cleanliness, wit. The ideal type: Aristotle’s Nicomachean ethics - Nicomachean ethics: he identified the virtues as simply those characteristics that enable individuals to live well in communities. To achieve a state of well being (happiness or human...
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...The purpose of this essay is to explore Virtue Ethics as an Ethical Philosophy that is more interested in virtues rather than the rules and principles of ethics. While exploring the moral character is important to this approach to normative ethics, it is worth mentioning that it is possible to boil down the two other major approaches – Deontology and Consequentialism – to Virtue Ethics. Upon further investigation, it becomes apparent that many defenses of ‘duties’ or Deontology, implicitly appeals to the consequences of our actions, even if those consequences are hidden behind a veil of mystery or authority. If this was not the case, the concept of duties would not make any sense since no matter what we do, no outcome will have a preferable...
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...Unlike utilitarianism, which focuses on the consequences of an action, and deontological ethics, which focuses on moral rules; virtue ethics focuses on doing something simply because it’s the right thing to do based on established virtues. Aristotle (Irbe, 2000) listed several virtues and vices that correspond to different “actions” or “feelings”. Each virtue has two corresponding vices that accompany it, one of the vices occurs when there is an excess of the virtue, and the other occurs when the virtue is deficient. The feeling associated with modesty is shame. If there is too much shame, it would be shyness; however not enough shame would be shamelessness. Virtue ethics focuses on choices that an individual should make based on morals that hold true regardless of the laws and customs of a person’s specific culture. Essentially everyone should be held accountable to the same virtues even if local laws and customs allow the behavior. One should apply virtue ethics to both their personal lives as well as their professional lives. In the 1990’s major concerns were exposed in the manufacturing community about working conditions in factories located in third-world countries (Sethi, Veral, Shapiro, & Emelianova, 2010). Major pressure was then placed on numerous manufacturing companies in an attempt to force them to change their practices and improve working conditions in their factories. While it is the goal of every company to continually increase profits, a company should...
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...Utilitarianism and virtue ethics both direct an individual’s moral decisions, but neither theory is perfect. Whilst utilitarianism focuses more on the consequences of our actions, virtue ethics focuses on the character of the person. In this essay, I will elaborate more on the core concepts of both utilitarianism and virtue ethics. Then, I will introduce a scenario that will be used to compare the two ethical frameworks side by side based on their suggestions. Finally, I will argue that between virtue ethics and utilitarianism in this scenario, even though they do not provide a morally perfect answer, utilitarianism has a more morally preferable answer than virtue ethics. Utilitarianism, also called by John Stuart Mill the “Greatest Happiness Principle” (Mill, p.77), states that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the opposite of happiness” (Mill, p.77). According to this principle, the actions that provide the greatest amount of happiness overall are morally the right actions to take, no matter what the said action actually is, because happiness is “pleasure and the absence of pain” (Woody Lecture Notes, Nov.5). This is known as maximizing total net utility, utility meaning “a measure of whatever one takes to be intrinsically good or...
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...Virtue ethics is the method of analysis that examines a moral issue from an iconic and virtuous person’s perspective(). Two examples of virtuous people include people like Gandhi or the Dalai Lama. For this paper, the 14th Dalai Lama’s perspective will be taken to analyze the moral issue. To reiterate, the moral issue in question that will be examined is: should the design engineers be blamed for the BP Oil Spill? There are only two answers to this question: engineers should be held responsible and accountable, or engineers should not be held responsible and accountable. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was known to advocate for animal welfare (). He is quoted as saying “We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage...
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...“Virtue ethics is of little use when dealing with practical ethics.” Discuss. It is often argued that virtue ethics is of little use when dealing with practical ethics. Virtue ethics does not focus on actions being right or wrong, but on how to be a good person. Virtue ethics raises three questions “who am I?”, “Who I ought to become?” and “How do I get there?”. On the other hand Practical ethics describes situations where an action is needed. Firstly virtue ethics goes back to Plato and Aristotle. Plato’s moral theory centres on the achievement of man’s highest good, which involves the right cultivation of his soul and the harmonious wellbeing of his life (Eudaimonia). Plato seemed to consider that certain virtues such as temperance, courage, prudence and justice (cardinal Virtues) are in balance a person’s actions will be good. It motivates people to want to be good. It shows the importance of education in showing that good actions are their own rewards. When these virtues are in balance a person’s actions will be good and therefore would disagree that virtue ethics is of little use. Aristotle’s ethical theory is known as virtue ethics because at the centre of his description of the good, which are the virtues which shape human character and ultimately human behaviour. However this good human life is one lived in harmony and co-operation with other people, since Aristotle saw people as not only rational beings but also as social beings. Aristotle saw two types of virtues...
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